


Dawn of Souls and the Mourning of Grievance.

by Nightingalewritings



Series: The Alorr’ika Chronicles [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Amazing, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backgriund Fett Family, F/M, Fox is a good dad, Fox misses his wife, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Luke is a kid, NEITHER OF YOU ARE DEAD, Oh look!, Sabe is a badass Handmaiden, Sabe is a pirate Queen, Shmi accidently stole herself the Mandalorian Empire, Sweet innoceant sun child, whoops?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightingalewritings/pseuds/Nightingalewritings
Summary: Ghosts... well they don't come back to life?Sabe thought that... until she ends up in a dangerous situation being hunted by a Mando and his small child.....Turns out, Ghosts really do come back to life, when they're not dead in the first place.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox/Sabé, Jango Fett/Shmi Skywalker
Series: The Alorr’ika Chronicles [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652077
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	Dawn of Souls and the Mourning of Grievance.

Dawn of Souls and the Mourning of Grievance.

_“Sabe, I’ll protect you.”_

_“You have to catch me first!”_

_“Over here, woman! Come here! Come to my arms and be safe, Ner Kar’ta”_

_“But all the fun is over here, my love!”_

_“Are you trying to develop a sense of humor? Or am I going deaf?”_

_“I cannot stand the water!... I cannot stand being wet! And I cannot stand you! You! You impossible man!”_

_“Good!”_

_“I have a house, and a family and things like that… not like I’m complaining or anything. I have a pet mooka, several. Sole possession of the sheets. All the Caf to myself in the mornings. That is particularly important. It is just~ I never met anyone I could laugh with… not like I did with him. Am I crazy?”_

PAGE BREAK

Fox stared across the gantry. There was the edge of an abyss, a chasm between them and where they needed to be. The walkway, their only escape, just _ended_ feet in front of them. Beneath them lay the gaseous core of a planet. A smuggler’s moon.

He had come searching for information on this new so-called _Pirate Queen of Naboo_. A creature that was made up of myths and legends. Spoken about in bars and hushed whispers, back alleyways, and slave quarters. 

The story of this Pirate Queen spread, grew. It evolved until everyone was talking about what she had done to the Empire. Drove them from her sector with a fury and viciousness few had ever seen before. 

She fought in grief covered armour, markings that coated and dripped, across her ribs and shoulders. Draped in the only finery she had left when she stole everything she could from the Empire. 

Faded old blood markings that maliciously formed a forgotten coat of arms. A single lonesome pillar standing in the forefront. Tall and elegant and tribal-like in nature. Thick strokes and sharp curves formed a cog acting abstractedly like a crown. 

Perfectly repeatin Life’s speculative start and evolution and fighting into its final form of civilization that was a complex machine. 

Black like ashes of the dead that burned in a city planet for days and nights. A city built of lies and shadows and corruption. Lies of the Republic for all that she represented yet failed to deliver. 

Cinders and charcoal and dust of those that defended the Republic. But Fell in death or corruption. Charcoal streaks, brittle and smudged, lay in thick arcing curves across the width of her arm. Upon her upper arm stark, bright white bands wrapped around. No one knew why. They did not dare ask about the two matching bands that were worn like emblems. 

Dents and scuffs decorated the Huntress’s armour. Blaster scouring that was rough and unfinished paint lay chipped and splintery. A mark that lay inches from where her heart would have been in most sentient beings. It failed to stop her. Worn like a defiant cry across her ribs. 

Harsh lighting glinted off at intense angles where countless attempts to kill her had been thwarted by her hard shell.

Jagged pieces unmatched, opening achingly new and ill-fitting lay on an upper arm and across a thigh and hip. A piece that was not filed down and shaped properly to fit the overall design. Unpainted grey. 

A sharp contrasting shock of monochromatic in a drenching sea of blood red. Tarnished pieces where the Huntress never seemed to properly shine or care for lay across her neck and shoulders. Heavy with burdens, no one could understand.

A shiny spot gleaned from vambraces rubbed smooth. Mirror like, hiding true intentions beneath their reflective sheen.

A blaster shot, jagged and serrated lay on her collarbone and shoulder. Missing her neck by mere chance and skill. 

Fox first heard that story when he and Ponds were returning home from a bounty. They had just stopped at one of the local taverns on the way home for old times sake. Just him and Ponds and some good old alcohol. It was a loud noisy ruckus, perfect to drown his pain in a bottle of corellian brandy or Devarian Whiskey. 

A group of small-time runners were upset in a corner. Fox never originally thought about them. Until he heard _what_ they were being loud about.

There was a story they were telling. Of how they were almost spaced and fought a pirate. A story of a Daughter of Naboo becoming a Pirate Queen. Of a pacifist Naboo putting away robes of cloth and abandoning their peaceful ways. Of a woman who wore Mando'ade armour painted in designs that echoed eerily of days past. Of _Clone armour designs painted on beskar. Hand and fingerprints, not brush strokes decorated it._

Of a Queen getting shot in the heart. Now that was what had gotten Fox's attention. For his Sabe would have pulled that same stunt, if she were alive. 

Hearing the stories. And the rumors, Fox found something new to occupy his time. No longer were his brothers dragging him on hunts, giving him worried little looks that Fox swore they were trying to hide from him. No longer was he aimlessly helping buir with the farm, day in and day out. Luke no longer was his sole reason for living these days. Mzazi no longer tried to ask if he was okay or if he wanted to come by the palace and _it'll be okay, Fox, maybe get a hobby. There's a position here open on Keldabe that I think you would like quite nicely!_

Fox spent his days off Concord Dawn now. In bar taverns and in smuggler dens and following shipments and intel from one end of the outer rim to the inner sectors of the Mid Rim. 

He tracked her. And as Fox followed and hunted her across the sectors and the stars, he couldn’t help but dream of days that were no more. Oh, this Pirate was so familiar it ached. He _had_ to find her. Fox could not help but dream of Sabe, _beautiful, fiery, wonderful Sabe_ , bantered and teased. How sparring led to _other_ things more times than not, when Sabe would dare him to find all the secretly stashed weapons on her person. How he loved to watch the eerily graceful, dance-like movements of his love, the most dangerous being in the room. 

Nights of hunting turned into a grieving rage that howled around him as he tried to drown in bottles of liquor. Tortured himself with memories. Past hunts and chases with Sabe through Coruscanti as Fox drudged up the past to analyze patterns, he thought were familiar. 

Fox never felt more alive than the times when he and Sabe had to join forces to investigate something in the Senate

Night after night, but Fox refused to quit the hunt. He would spend days, pushing and pushing. Days would turn into sleepless nights and it would become a week later, and Fox would end up collapsing into the nearest corner. 

Tired in body. 

Tired in soul. 

Wrecked and destroyed without _his Sabe._

So, he tracked the Pirate Queen. Through squalor and prestigious gatherings. Never catching a true name. No face was revealed for him to pinpoint, not a single real feature. 

She was good. He would grant his quarry that.

Exceptionally damn good.

But Fox had been doing this for a while. He knew how to glance at people and catch finite differences with care. His brothers all wore the same face, thousands of them, he knew how to find one among all the exact same copies. It was an artform, he was well versed in. 

Fox never, _never,_ in his life of hunting beings through layers and levels of Coruscant, imagined him _teaming_ _up with his target!_

Yet here they were. Hunter and Hunted formed a truce to make it off this station that was determined to kill the two of them. How a fight through the station dissolved into them being on the same working side, Fox still does not understand. 

Now…. Fox fought instinctively against the attraction; the seamless dance that went unspoken. He fought the witty remarks, the banter of the Bounty hunter at his side. How they didn’t speak but shared the same thoughts and the same instinctive patterns. Aligning perfectly in ways that Fox desperately chafed against. 

_He_ _did not want to fall into patterns that resembled his life with Sabe!_

Let the Past be the Past. Let the echoes of his old life stay dead with the woman that he could not bring back. _Sweet Manda, let it stay dead._

The bounty hunter stood on the opposite side of Luke, helmet scanning the gantry and the doorway they had come through. The distance across the chasm was too far, but the distance to their pursuers was too small… and shrinking rapidly. 

Fox already knew exactly how they could escape. Nothing like being stuck on a death trap with his kit and only one, death sentence of an exit left to them. 

The hunter, the woman, who wore sorrow and grief in ways that Fox envied, dipped her head. Probably coming to the same conclusion as he had. 

Luke was small, practically weighing nothing at all, but they still only had limited weapons and fuel between them. The woman was good, he would grant her that, but even she had to be running low on reserves after their chase and brawl through the station behind them. Fox eyed his companion, no, she had to be almost out of weapons. Even _Sabe_ would be running low on weapons after that. 

So. That left them one option…... Down. 

Fox scruffed his kit, dragging the boy into a warm _keldabe_ , gentle and firm. Spoke to him in the language of their kin, trusting the boy to listen to his instructions. “ _Huutkat’kama. Ke’ti ni, luk’ika_.”

Luke nodded, blonde hair flopping into bright blue eyes. The emotions that shone through strands of hair, Fox knew all too well. 

His little kit was all heart, all adventure, and all _mandokarla_. He was a Fett through and through.

“‘Lek, buir!”

Fox nodded, turning to face the entrance behind them. The shouting, hammering footfalls of their chasers echoed louder. Coming closer. Whatever he had planned, he had to do it and soon. 

Fox nodded to Luke, grasped his shoulder for the last time before he yanked the three of them over the edge. 

Luke screeched, laughing as the wind blew past his face as he fell. The boy spread his arms wide, latching onto their companion as they descended. Fox spun, putting his back to the sky and aimed. Taking out the final rusting support of the gantry. It dissolved into wet heated rivers of melted duristeel. Fox could only trust that Luke was doing as he told.

“Oh, my heavens! Oh, my heavens!” The bounty hunter screeched. Finally they had enough distance between them and the gantry to ignite the jetpack. Yanking her and the boy who had latched onto her neck upwards. 

“Is he nuts? Are you nuts?!” She continued to screech, shaking the small mooka that was nestled around her ribs and collar.

Fox sighed, hearing through his mic pick up, hearing his little kit’s gleeful screeching cry. It settled his soul. The woman’s library of Nubian swear words and phrases of prayer knocked loose a brand new shard of grief. Even after eleven years, he could not stop mourning _her_. The bounty hunter was cursing in ways that Sabe used to when she thought something was utterly _Bantha-shit insane._

Would he ever?

Luke laughed, small arms inched upwards, wrapping themselves around a slim neck. “Buir’s not nuts. He is crazy!”

“Focus.” Fox admonished, eyes scanning the towering pillars of ‘glass and ‘steel. “We don’t know if that’s all of them. Better be prepared. Can you make it to the Space docks?”

The swearing ended, faded away in whistling wind as the other woman refocused on the matter at hand. One arm wrapped around Luke’s small body, boosting him higher into her grasp. A helmeted head dipped low in agreement. A rich accented voice that caused Fox _too much pain, would the pain never stop?_ to hear, spoke. “Yes. I will meet you there, Commander.”

How did she know what rank to call him by? Why did those words have the same inflections just like how Sabe would say those words? The same exact phrasing and lilting and _everything._ It was like _Sabe was speaking to him at this very moment._

Fox wondered all these things, watched as the red and black colored figure darted upwards. How he could barely catch a glimpse of Luk'ika as the sun peeked over the station and glinted. 

Fox tore his mind away from old painful memories and refocused. Yes, Luke would be safe for now. But in order to keep his little kit safe for longer, it was _his_ job to clear the opposition.

PAGE BREAK

_“I~”_

_“Stop that. I already know, my heart. You don’t have to say anything.”_

_“My mother once asked me a question. When did I fall in love with Fox. The only response I could give her was It was while we were sleeping, I guess.”_

_“I was born into a life of duty. I have never been free to make my own choices. But I choose you, Sabe.”_

_“You know all my secrets now. You carry my life in your hands.”_

_“The truth is staring you in the face and you can’t even see it.”_

_“What truth?”_

_“Whatever I am, you love me. And you always will.”_

_“What do you know about my family? Spending a month with them does not make you an expert!”_

_“Spending a lifetime with them hasn’t made you one either!”_

PAGE BREAK

Sabe had managed to set them down on the road to the docks. Once she was certain they were safe at least for the moment. She started to run ensuring that Luke was still in her arms. The boy weighed practically nothing, but he gripped her neck with a strength that surprised her. Her heavy armor-clad boots thundered a warning throughout the empty docking bays. She marched with a single-minded purpose, keeping her hand close to the blaster on her hip, eyes scanning the articles scattered in people’s wake.

This part of the bay was deserted. It lay half destroyed from the brawls earlier. Stacks of cargo and shipping crates lay hazardlessly thrown and littered the floor of the hangar bay. It looked halfway to being a junkshop, realistically. Sabe’s bucket covered her gaze. But it did not stop her from missing details. The arrival of a hunter on their tail. Armed with a Disintegrator Rifle. 

She ducked around a shipping crate, form angling itself to hide the boy in her grasp. Sabe’s shoulder took the first shot. Red and white covered beskar _pinged_ with the rifle shot. She growled and her arm wrapped around the small fragile body in her grip. Free hand pulling out her blaster. Her gaze swung wildly in the dark, crap lighting of the bay, trying to find the hunter. She scrambled backwards, throwing her back painfully into a new stack as she attempted to find new _safer_ cover for them both.

“Luke? It’s Luke, right?” She tried to keep her voice soft. Hiding the wellspring of panic beneath still calm waters. She was a professional. Sabe would _not_ panic. Not right now. Afterwards? Well afterwards was a totally different story all together.

“Yeah.” Luke ducked. He nestled closer to the armour. Elbows and knees gripping with their knobby little joints. 

“Okay, Luke. This is what I’m going to do okay?” Sabe grabbed Luke's attention. Tried to keep it on her, as they worked their way towards the ship.

“Do you know the story of the Nubian Queen Mei, Luke?” Sabe asked. Focusing on the words coming out of her mouth and less on her actions. 

The boy in her care was what was important here. Not how they were outnumbered and being _hunted_ while the boy’s father was _not_ close by. Sabe would just have to deal with the problem herself.

Her eyes catalogued the room, trying to pinpoint sniper nests and foxholes. Spots scattered throughout the hangar that would offer cover but also spots that were dangerous. She had been looking for a path across for her and the boy.

It was too dark… _for a normal hunter_ but Sabe had never been a normal bounty hunter. She had been trained to hone her skills since she was a small child. Trained to become one of the deadliest things in the galaxy as a Daughter of Naboo.

She was wearing _beskar’gam._ She was wearing elite armour to match her skills. Rangefinders, heat trackers, and mic pickups. She had complex technology to aid in her hunting. She had an arsenal in her grasp.

The others, the smugglers and drunks that were targeting her and the boy?

They didn’t have _half_ of the training. True, they outnumbered her ten to one. Plus there was the matter of Luke needing protection. But that just leveled the playing field. 

_“On Naboo, we had a Queen by the name of Mei Zhurong of the House of Zessposs. She was our Queen during the Fall of the Last Sith Empire.”_

Sabe refocused on the child and her story. Making sure to keep her voice and words calming.

She swung her head around, scanning the dark hanger in front of her. It was just her and the boy. There were 300 meters between them and safety. 300 meters of trouble and _being hunted._ Sabe _could not_ fail another person. Not this time. So, she kept the boy close to her as she swung around another stack of crates.

Heat sigs only worked well if they were being used on an actual warm blooded being. Not one that was cold blooded and counted as a living corpse by any other species’ standards. Sabe came face to face with a Faust. Pale blue skin and slender limbed. It could not have been any other kind of sentient. Which did not improve Sabe’s mood. Not at all.

She turned her body, hand already pulling blaster up in one smooth arc. She shot the smuggler in the face point blank. There were far too many of them scattered across the hangar. Too many angles to protect Luke against. If it was just her, then Sabe would have been glad for such a fight. But not now. Not when she had a small fragile boy in her grasp.

_“She was fierce and bold. Legend says that she had been the one to slay one of the last Sith Lords when he came to Naboo. But it was not always that way, child. She did not slay him when he came seeking to enslave her home and our people._

They spun around the stack of crates. Backs against something durable while Sabe reevaluated the situation. They still had to move 270 meters left. And who knows how many smugglers still were hiding.

Sabe’s chest heaved and pushed against her armour. Her lungs burned and they ached. Her armour was absorbing most of the blaster fire that was hitting her. Which was not much if any. Most of who was hunting them were drunks and horrible shots. They shot worse than the Imperials these days.

She pushed the boy behind the crates, ducking a stray shot in their direction as she did so. Behind the crates, Sabe let the boy down to the floor as she tried to heave air into lungs from a filtered system. Sabe continued to bring her tale to life to her captivated audience. She whispered in small delicate ears about Mei and her exploits.

_Mei had originally been banished from Naboo. Kicked from her lands and her people shackled in chains that would instead constrict and bind them for years to come. The Gungans left the surface. Left and deserted us in our greatest hour of need._

So, Mei became a Pirate. Banished from her home, with nothing to her name but skills of war and a desire to stop the Sith. She had no plan, no goal. Only a burning hatred to destroy them. She had been a young woman then. Practically ateenager, still.”

Sabe shifted the small wiry child to one side of her hip. Leaving herself open to fight as she continued to try and hold the boy’s attention. 

Sabe needed to get them across the hangar so that she could track down the boy’s father. She was _not_ a parent. That was a blessing the Galaxy had deemed her unfit for years ago.

_“Well, anyway, Mei joined a pirate gang. Worked her way up through the crew to be the right hand of the Pirate Captain. And when the old Captain died, the pirates all collectively elected Mei as Pirate Lord. She was their bravest, fiercest, most daring crewmember, her plans were insanity, but more often than not, they worked. Garnering them riches and hyperspace lanes to control. Years went past and Mei formed a pirate empire. One that had slowly formed a net around Naboo and the Sith Lord ruling the planet. She blocked off all inbound and outbound routes. Sucking the planet dry of anything that the Sith would ever want._

Sabe and the boy slid out from behind the stack of crates, headed in a round about direction to the ever-waiting ship on the far side of the bay.

“What did she have planned for the Sith?” Luke asked, bright blue eyes looking into he T-shaped visor of her helmet.

“Oh, just the usual. We’ll get there, yet.” Sabe told him. She scanned for a clear path to the next section of crates. Sabe had never felt more sympathy for ducks being hunted then at this moment.

_“He hated the Pirate Queen. He hated that everyone called her War and Death. He despised the fear that a single woman wearing ancient armour, that was a Pirate, could garner compared to him, a master of the Dark Side! A Sith Lord!_

_Mei wore armour that was ancient Nubian, battle kama skirts and lorica squamata armour. A blood palla followed in her wake and underneath that, a fine limbus and stola. Her face was painted and vicious. And yet Mei, who was known as the Pirate Queen by then, had snared herself a Sith Lord. She slew him in the seat of the empire- Temp’e’sta Atuia of the Naboo system. One of our moons in our system.”_

The two were maybe three quarters across the hanger. A quarter of the way left from _safety/freedom/shelter/ship_ when blaster fire opened around her. But Sabe was ready for _that._

Sabe’s movements _flowed._

Sabe left her ribs open to fight. Blaster fire opened around her, but she was ready for this. The boy clung tighter to her, digging his head into her neck. Fingers gripping flight suit around armour plates. 

Sabe tried to move. Tried to dodge blaster bolts and not let the kid get hurt.

_Tried_ … well that was the key word here anyways. 

In attempting to keep the boy safe, Sabe had left herself open.

A normally small opening was glaringly large when a blaster bolt hit her unprotected side. Making her stumble and lose her grip on the precious child for scant seconds.

Tengro shouted from behind crates. For it clearly was Tengro, the insufferable greedy _a’sintus_ that he was, declared. “Put down your weapons, and surrender, Pirate Queen. We have you surrounded.”

Sabe laughed. It was a harsh cruel decisive heave of air gusting through her lips as she spun around. Lights were far too bright in the hangar, even filtered through the helmet. She tasted sharp tangy sweat. Rivers of it dripped underneath her flight suit. Marking a path downwards between her shoulder blades as her muscles burned and ached in ways that they had not in years.

It almost felt like she was back in the days of when she was a Handmaiden. She almost expected Fox to appear around the corner to have her back. _But that was impossible. Fox was dead. Had been for ten karking years. Get your head in the game, Sabe._ She mentally yelled at herself, straightening up as far as she could.

Her side ached. It burned with agony that Sabe knew meant that it would need bacta. The boy whimpered in her grip. Sabe eyed the distance between the ship and herself.

_Too far._

_Way too far._

But still, she pushed herself to turn back on it. To put the small child on the floor and _to face_ the Smuggler. Luke’s head barely passed her hips. He was all gangly limbed and bright blue eyes and blonde hair and it _burned in her soul._ There was something _familiar_ about the young boy that stood next to her.

“You surrender to me? Very well, I accept.” Sabe kept talking, egging the smuggler to react to her. 

Luke stood beside her hip. Sabe placed her hand on his neck, fingers tapping a subtle dadita sequence into the base of his hair. Her helmet never wavered from looking where Tengro hid. 

She gently pulled Luke behind her, armoured body hiding the small boy from sight. She may have been cornered by this smuggler and his gang of goons, but she would still do everything that her training had taught her as a child.

“Think of the kid in your grasp, Pirate. Think of the fortunes you could amass for me! Think of all the headaches you have caused the Empire and how you are the _bane_ of every sentient being here! You have one choice to make, Pirate Queen! Will you make the right one?” Tengro shouted back, hands fingering the phase pulse rifle.

Sabe growled, a low animalistic sound, deep in the back of her throat. She would _not_ fail someone a second time. The past ten years sat on her shoulders with all the weight of a century. Her armour hung and swayed with her movements. Carbon scoured and soured with grief. Rent into existence through her grief that she carried in her soul. Colored and decorated with her fears and her hatred. Her sorrow wrapped around her like a cloak of malevolence. It swayed and dodged her footsteps like hounds at a master’s feet.

Sabe had looked death in the face, begged him to take her as well…. Only to be turned away without a parting word. And it left her bloody and broken and shattered. Crumbled in a thousand pieces of grain that was far too small to rebuild and glue back together… unless you used a hot enough forge to create something new.

She drank down her grief like it was the finest of red wines. The most exotic and rare of delights. Like it was the purest of blood. After a while, one could never tell the difference between pleasure and pain.

What Tengro faced in that Hangar was not something that was normal in this galaxy. The woman before him was of fury and death. She was forged and burned, welded together from Grief and Fears. He was facing a _survivor_ and he _didn’t understand_ what lengths she had pulled herself up from.

PAGE BREAK

Luke stood at her side. He did not know who this woman was. Not really but _something_ ,

something inside of him whispered that she was safe to trust. It was the same feeling he would get when Buir would tell him that they were about to do something dangerous and unexpected. 

Something inside of Luke, could tell that she felt like distant, faded mirroring echos of

something familiar to him. It reminded him of safety. Safety and home and Ba’buir and Mzazi. It felt like a warm hand on his shoulder and a side hug from Buir. A laughter tinkling down the hall pinged across his senses, warm and friendly and unusually rare. It was not deep like Buir’s or Ba’vodu Five’s laugh. It wasn’t the high cackling snort of Aunt Rabe. It was not the bell like sound of Mazi’s laugh… This was from someone new…. But it was as familiar to Luke as buir's voice and hugs were. 

Ba’buir said that he felt things because he was ka’ra’nure or _star touched_. Because he was open and receptive to the Galaxy and to the Force. 

“You, son of a _dar’jetiise norac haran.”_ The huntress hissed out, looking in the other’s

direction. She threw mando’a into her language.

Norac….. _back._

Why was she calling the Smugglers Sith back hells? Luke wondered silently. Was she really bad at mando'a? Watching the woman’s body language flair and puff up like an upset Tooka. Her feet were set in a sturdy stance, strong and unmovable. Her hips were turned like she was turning for a punch and her left hand flew up and hit her right elbow as she leaned forward. Mandalorian T-Visor helmet pinning the Smuggler as she kept talking.

Luke’s eyes traced her free hand, the one that she kept near her blaster and kept tapping on the pistol hilt.

_How did she know dadita?_ Luke finally grasped the movement pattern. Understanding that the rhythms were not random but was all part of the complicated dadita orders she was giving him.

“ _Ke hodasalar!”_ The Huntress shouted, lunging into the fray of six smugglers.

Her hand slipped Luke a small hold out blaster, less than half the size of a regular blaster.

Luke’s body jolted, instinct taking over as he heard the order to take cover. The hold out blaster gripped between his hands as he scurried underneath a corner of a tarp that draped behind a stack of pallets. His breathes heaved in his chest as his eyes watched the Huntress in red. Watched how she stalked threateningly towards her prey.

Personally, Luke did not really want to hide. He was ten standard years old! He was big

enough to fight now, Buir even said so. But he knew that this woman would protect him.

That was when she moved. He knew she was in pain, and yet somehow, she was moving as if the winds of Tatooine were at her beck and call. She moved like an enraged Biseah dragon protecting her nest. She moved as if Osupa had blessed her actions with the speed of her moons. Luke watched her.

Watched how she snapped around. Her leg flinging upwards and nailing a smuggler in the jaw. Hit another goon in the nose as he came up behind her. Trying to grab her by the upper arms. Between one breath and the next, it seemed like she had taken out three of the six smugglers. Whipped their butts before they even had a chance to do anything.

The Huntress was half of their size, and she darted between them like a snake coiling around a branch. Dart in, jab, dart out. Hit another with a kick. Throw a punch here and spin there. She was _memorizing_ to watch.

One more of the smugglers fell to a well-placed strike to their sternum. Luke winced in slight sympathy. That blow _looked painful_ even from a distance. 

It was almost as if this was a well-rehearsed dance. One that she had done countless times….

Until she stumbled.

A footstep forward, a hit against her knee and then her already injured ribs where there was a blossoming dark stain beginning to flower. Her stance flattered, just for a moment as she tried to over correct and keep her back from facing even one of the remaining people.

But in taking one out, she had left her backside unguarded. Uncharacteristically left unguarded as if she had someone there to watch it for her. Consequently, a blaster went off dangerously close to her helmet. Luke guessed the weapon was point blank to her helmet. She flung her head backwards.

Hand jolted up and connected with the arm. Spinning the blaster around and squeezing off a handful of shots on her way down. 

This was the Huntress? She looked well... the boy could only think of one word- she looked _normal_ to him. 

It was then that Luke realized the helmet had taken damage in the fight. He was so busy watching her that he almost missed buir's arrival. Buir's grey and black armour practically blended in with the shadows of the bay. 

Buir's head was practically spinning as he took in the sight around him. That was when Luke realized that buir was probably looking for him. He was just about to speak when buir's eyes drifted back to the Huntress. 

Past Luke. 

He had never seen buir so still but for a moment it was as if time itself had stopped. Buir was a frozen statue. Staring at the woman who fumbling with her helmet. Her hands grasped and frantically pulled the beskar covering off. Pulled it with frenzied motions, almost like she was panicking. 

The Huntress stumbled upwards to her feet, hands continuing their frantic motions. It was almost like she expected there to be more beings to fight. A thundering _clang_ in the echoing silence. She had the most expressive brown eyes that were warm and friendly and so _achingly sad_ that Luke had ever seen. Brown hair curled, sweat soaked strands clung to her skin in errant tendrils. Blood caked the side of her head, in shocking red strokes. It was right where the blaster had gone off right next to her helmet. Even beskar would not keep their wearer unscathed from a shot that was point blank. Luke realized that almost immediately as he stared at her. 

It was as if all the air and sound had been spaced out of the station and they were no longer in the planet's atmo.

A heavy loud silence hung between the three of them. The kind that Luke had never experienced. As if time itself had been spaced... was that even possible? The boy somewhat wondered, muscles preparing to move. 

“Serdetsi?”

Then buir said something. A handful of words. Was it a name? It was full of loving reverence. Barely audible, the sounds spoken breathily and with such care.

The way buir spoke it. It sounded like he was about to cry.

But buir never cried? What was going on?

Whatever it was, the Huntress recognized it and her head snapped in buir's direction. Brown eyes that felt like they were hiding old sorrows, snapped to look at buri.

Buir was standing frozen on the edge of the cleared area where she had taken out the 6 beings. He was standing frozen. Shockingly still in ways that Luke had never seen. His shoulders were pulled back, like he was fighting to hunch inwards and collapse. His feet were rooted still, but his hand~

Buir had his hand extended like he wanted to touch her.

“Who… how do you know that name?” She asked. Her tone was harsh, almost cruel. The words were brittle and cold. Almost like they were causing her pain to even hear the word that buir spoke.

Buir froze, body bent backwards almost like he was getting sucker punched when she turned around.


End file.
